Stress and Interferon Signalling-Mediated Apoptosis Contributes to Pleiotropic Anticancer Responses Induced by Targeting NGLY1
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www.nature.com/bjc ARTICLE Cellular and Molecular Biology Stress and interferon signalling-mediated apoptosis contributes to pleiotropic anticancer responses induced by targeting NGLY1 Ashwini Zolekar1, Victor. J. T. Lin1, Nigam M. Mishra1, Yin Ying Ho2, Hamed S. Hayatshahi1, Abhishek Parab3, Rohit Sampat1, Xiaoyan Liao4,6, Peter Hoffmann2,5, Jin Liu1, Kyle A. Emmitte1 and Yu-Chieh Wang1 BACKGROUND: Although NGLY1 is known as a pivotal enzyme that catalyses the deglycosylation of denatured glycoproteins, information regarding the responses of human cancer and normal cells to NGLY1 suppression is limited. METHODS: We examined how NGLY1 expression affects viability, tumour growth, and responses to therapeutic agents in melanoma cells and an animal model. Molecular mechanisms contributing to NGLY1 suppression-induced anticancer responses were revealed by systems biology and chemical biology studies. Using computational and medicinal chemistry-assisted approaches, we established novel NGLY1-inhibitory small molecules. RESULTS: Compared with normal cells, NGLY1 was upregulated in melanoma cell lines and patient tumours. NGLY1 knockdown caused melanoma cell death and tumour growth retardation. Targeting NGLY1 induced pleiotropic responses, predominantly stress signalling-associated apoptosis and cytokine surges, which synergise with the anti-melanoma activity of chemotherapy and targeted therapy agents. Pharmacological and molecular biology tools that inactivate NGLY1 elicited highly similar responses in melanoma cells. Unlike normal cells, melanoma cells presented distinct responses and high vulnerability to NGLY1 suppression. CONCLUSION: Our work demonstrated the significance of NGLY1 in melanoma cells, provided mechanistic insights into how NGLY1 inactivation leads to eradication of melanoma with limited impact on normal cells, and suggested that targeting NGLY1 represents a novel anti-melanoma strategy. British Journal of Cancer (2018) 119:1538–1551; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-018-0265-9 BACKGROUND congenital deglycosylation disorder, were recently identified.2,5,8,9 As a pivotal glycosidase known for catalysing the removal of Many of these mutations cause premature termination of glycans from N-glycosylated asparagine residues, NGLY1 (a.k.a. translation, leading to complete loss of NGLY1 in the patients. PNGase) enables the deglycosylation of denatured glycoproteins Until this discovery, the disease implications of NGLY1 had not and allows proteasome-mediated protein degradation to effi- been definitive. ciently occur.1–5 A TGase-superfamily (PNGase-core) domain exists NGLY1 deficiency causes a broad spectrum of disease in NGLY1 proteins ranging from yeast to human,4 suggesting the phenotypes with incomplete penetrance in patients.2,5,8,9 Many evolutionarily conserved significance of NGLY1 enzymatic activity NGLY1 deficiency-associated phenotypes are closely related to in cells. It is known that loss of NGLY1 function in cells can cause developmental delay and congenital abnormalities, suggesting the accumulation of aberrant proteins in the cytosol and the the significant role and intricate regulation of this glycosidase in interruption of endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degra- the normal development of human organs. Despite the recently dation (ERAD).1,4,5 Therefore, NGLY1 defects are likely to affect the gained knowledge about NGLY1 deficiency, there is limited quality control and homeostasis of many cellular proteins, information regarding the responses of human cancer cells and subsequently perturbing signalling pathways, cell physiology, terminally differentiated somatic cells to NGLY1 suppression. and organ development. The studies of an NGLY1 ortholog gene, NGLY1 is commonly expressed in many types of normal and PNGase-like (Pngl), in fruit fly and fungus also indicate that NGLY1 cancer cells (www.proteinatlas.org),10 suggesting that NGLY1 could be involved in the regulation of cell normality through an could be essential for a variety of human cells regardless of their enzymatic activity-independent mechanism.6,7 Interestingly, pathophysiological conditions. Notably, NGLY1 appears to be human NGLY1 gene mutations that result in NGLY1 deficiency, a highly expressed in certain human cancer cells (e.g., melanoma 1Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, UNT System College of Pharmacy, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA; 2Adelaide Proteomics Centre, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia; 3Department of Mathematics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; 4Department of Pathology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA and 5Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia Correspondence: Y-C. Wang ([email protected]) 6Present address: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA These authors contributed equally: Ashwini Zolekar, Victor J.T. Lin. Received: 26 April 2018 Revised: 11 August 2018 Accepted: 31 August 2018 Published online: 2 November 2018 © The Authors 2018 Published by Springer Nature on behalf of Cancer Research UK Stress and interferon signalling-mediated apoptosis contributes to. A Zolekar et al. 1539 and ovarian cancer), while low-to-undetectable in their normal Knockdown of NGLY1 and GADD153 counterpart tissues (e.g., skin and ovary) (www.proteinatlas.org).10 The knockdown of NGLY1 expression in melanoma cells was These observations raise an intriguing possibility that NGLY1 may achieved by the transduction of pZIP-TRE3GS lentiviral expression be crucial for cancer development and progression. Moreover, vectors that carry two independent shRNA sequences (Supple- cancer cells, at least in certain cancer types, may be particularly mentary Materials and Methods; TransOMIC Technologies, Hunts- vulnerable to loss of NGLY1 compared with normal cells. ville, AL). A pZIP-TRE3GS vector that carries a NT-shRNA sequence In this study, we systematically and mechanistically examined was used as the control. The expression of the shRNA sequences the significance of NGLY1 in melanoma cells and how it may be and an open reading frame of the ZsGreen reporter is driven exploited as a novel anticancer target. In addition, we developed by the TRE3GS doxycycline-inducible promoter. The transduced and tested novel covalent inhibitors that suppress NGLY1 activity cells were selected using puromycin for a prolonged period in human cells. Our results strongly support that (~4 weeks) to obtain the stable clones of cancer cells that carry NGLY1 suppression in melanoma cells elicits multifaceted inducible NT-shRNA, NGLY1-shRNA645 and NGLY1-shRNA647 cancer-elimination responses, and that targeting NGLY1 and sequences. protein deglycosylation may represent a novel anticancer strategy The knockdown of GADD153 expression in melanoma cells with the opportunity for a broad therapeutic window. was achieved by the transduction of pZIP-hEF1a-RFP lentiviral expression vectors that carry three independent shRNA sequences (Supplementary Materials and Methods; TransOMIC MATERIALS AND METHODS Technologies, Huntsville, AL). A pZIP-hEF1a-RFP lentiviral Cell Culture expression vector carries a NT-shRNA sequence was used as Human dermal fibroblasts were cultured in DMEM (Thermo Fisher the control. The expression of the shRNA sequences and an Scientific, Carlsbad, CA) containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS; open reading frame of the RFP reporter is driven by the human Thermo Fisher Scientific, Carlsbad, CA) at 37°C. HEMl and HEMd EF1α gene promoter. (ScienCell Research Laboratories, Carlsbad, CA) cells were cultured in melanocyte medium (MelM; ScienCell Research Laboratories, Overexpression of human NGLY1 Carlsbad, CA). Human melanoma cells were cultured using RPMI- A pLenti expression vector that carries a Myc-DDK-tagged-human 1640 medium (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Carlsbad, CA) or DMEM/ NGLY1 open reading frame driven by a CMV promoter (OriGene F12 medium (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Carlsbad, CA) containing Technologies, Rockville, MD) was transduced into cells for the 1234567890();,: 10% FBS. WA09 human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) were overexpression of NGLY1. A pLenti-C-Myc-DDK empty vector was obtained from the WiCell Stem Cell Bank (WiCell Research used as the transduction control. Institute, Madison, WI). HMi-50611 and NGLY1Pt1i-509 hiPSCs were established using CytoTune Sendai Reprogramming Kit Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Fluorescence Staining (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Carlsbad, CA). We followed the The general procedure for antibody-mediated fluorescence previously described method12 for culturing undifferentiated staining was previously described12 and provided as part human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in a feeder cell-free of Supplementary Materials and Methods. The detailed informa- condition, except the use of TeSR-E8 medium (Stemcell Technol- tion of primary antibodies was summarised in Supplementary ogies, Vancouver, Canada) and L7 hPSC passaging solution (Lonza, Table S2. Walkersville, MD) in this study. The detailed information of cells used in this study was summarised in Supplementary Table S1. Immunoblotting The experiments using hPSCs were performed in compliance with The general procedure for immunoblotting was described in a the guidelines and approval of the institutional biosafety previously published report,13 except that cell lysates were committee at UNTHSC. All cells were periodically tested using prepared using M-PER mammalian protein extraction